


His Dear Dead Flesh

by usedupshiver



Category: Iron Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Blood, Blood Drinking, Curse Breaking, Dark, Disturbing Themes, Dubious Morality, Extremely Dubious Consent, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Injections, Isolation, M/M, Magic, Mutual Non-Con, Necrophilia, Needles, Non-Consensual Somnophilia, Or just outright non-existent morality, Pseudonecrophilia, Rape/Non-con Elements, Somehow this mess still has a happy ending, Somnophilia, Starvation, Tony Stark Has Issues, Vampire Loki, Warning: Loki, Warning: Tony, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-03
Updated: 2015-08-05
Packaged: 2018-04-12 19:14:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4491465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/usedupshiver/pseuds/usedupshiver
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony ends up in trouble worse than he could even imagine after breaking into the house of a dying man. As he faces Loki's otherworldly nature he comes to realize that he's there for a reason – one connected to his own very darkest desires. And that damnation can become salvation, for both of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> A huge thanks to Mia, who was the devil on my shoulder cheering me on through this mess. You helped make this happen and I hope you're proud! ;D
> 
> The title is a quote from the amazing novel _Exquisite Corpse_ , which in many ways was an inspiration for this and anyone who loves the dark, disturbing and morbidly beautiful things should read it.
> 
> On the non-con warning: This story features vampirism as well as (pseudo)necrophilia, which should give you an idea of the both non-sexual and sexual elements of non-con that will appear here. (No-one is actually having sex with a corpse. Just saying...)

The man living in the house on 13 Yew Tree Lane was dying. That was the only thing Tony knew about him, but it was enough for his purposes.

He had been checking up on all the houses on this street by the edge of town, and this one had caught his eye. It was the last one on the left, a bit set apart from the others since the lot next to it was empty, all weeds and gravel. Maybe someone had once planned to build a treasured forever home there and then changed their mind. In any case it meant that number 13 was a lonely looking place right by the edge of the woods surrounding the houses lining this short street

It was a tall, narrow, victorian thing with double doors where the once bright green paint had almost peeled all the way off, bay windows on both floors with high, slim panes of glass, a steep roof, and all made of deep red brick. Once it had been a gorgeous place, but now it was run down and trapped in the middle of a yard that hadn't been tended to in ages. Tangles of raspberry bushes, an ancient oak where one of the lower branches had broken off and fallen to the ground, perhaps under the extra weight of winter snows, and had never been cleared away. Half the house was swallowed up by ivy.

At first Tony had thought the place was abandoned, but then he had noticed that all the windows were whole. And when he returned at night, hidden behind trees and bushes where the back yard almost seemlessly blended into the woods, he saw a light burning in the back room.

The man was sitting there, in a worn old wing chair, his head rolled to the side against the high back. Black hair was hanging limp around his pale face and skinny neck. He looked as old and worn as the leather of his chair, dark hollows around his eyes and under his cheekbones, there was something dark on his forehead, and his face more or less a skull under thin, dry-looking skin. The hands on the armrests of the chair looked brittle. He was faintly wrinkled, like an old man, but Tony suspected disease had done that, not years.

He wondered what was eating the guy up at the moment. Some kind of cancer, maybe? AIDS? Could be. He looked like he was being slowly consumed from the inside. Falling apart at the seams.

Tony honestly didn't care. All he knew was that a guy like that would be an easy mark, and he was willing to bet that his medicine cabinet or bedside table would be a veritable treasure trove. People dying slowly tended to have lots of the really great kind of painkillers. Doctors never hesitated to prescribe those if you were hanging on by a thread. What did it matter if you got hooked? Just drown them in morphine and let them die happy.

For his part Tony wasn't that into the stuff. He didn't have the disposition for downers. They did nothing, for the most part. Which was pretty annoying when he could eat sleeping pills like they were candy and still stay wide awake.

Hallucinogens were also useless. His mind just didn't work that way. It refused to shut down and go with it.

No, he preferred stimulants if he could get his hands on them. The chemical, quicksilver high of speed was his favourite. Made his mind hard and sleek and fast like a bullet, turned him impervious and invincible. Yeah, he loved it. And if he could sell whatever he found in Mr. Dying Dude's house for a good price he was searching out his go-to guy who always had the best, cleanest stuff. Tony could feel chills blossom in circles over his scalp at the mere thought of it, could almost smell the sharp, cut-grass scent of the powder.

Yeah, that was a good plan. He was so doing that.

Right now he needed to focus on _this_ plan, though.

The man in number 13 stayed in his wing chair all night. Most of the time his eyes were closed and he looked like he was dozing in his seat, but now and then he picked up a book from a side table and read a few lines or pages, before he put it away again and his head tipped back against the cracked leather. His Adam's apple moved with his strained swallows, standing out clearly on his skinny, sinewy throat. He looked exhausted, as if just picking up the book and deciphering a few lines of text was more than he could handle.

It was into the very early hours of the morning when the man left his seat, heavily supported on first the back of it and then the wall, and the light in the window finally switched off.

And after waiting another half hour, it was time for Tony to move.

He picked up his backpack and slipped it on, pulled the hood of his thick, dark gray sweatshirt lower over his forehead, dragged the black scarf around his neck up over the scruffy goatee around his mouth, settling it across his nose so his dark eyes were the only thing visible of his face. Not that he expected to be seen, but better safe than really fucking sorry.

Sneaking across the back yard was easy, overgrown as it was, and luckily the steps up to the back porch were wrought iron; if they had been wood they would likely have crumbled under his weight. It surprised Tony to find that the door was unlocked when he reached it, but not too much. Neighbourhoods like these were quiet and peaceful and no-one expected to have their house robbed while they slept, safe and sound in their beds. Maybe they'd rethink that after tonight.

The hallway he stepped into was dark, as expected, but there was enough street light falling in through the double doors and the bay window at the front of the house to show Tony a bare, wooden floor. To his right he could make out the black maw in the wall that was the wide doorway to the room where the dying man had been spending his night. Now he couldn't see it, but he remembered what it looked like; bookshelves along the walls, a soot-stained old fireplace and the lonely wing chair. Tony walked past it on the completely silent soles of his sneakers, to find that the rest of the first floor was a kitchen that had an off feel of never being used, and a dusty-smelling dining room behind the dirty bay window.

No bathroom on this floor. Damn. He'd have check out the second floor to find anything of interest.

The steep, narrow stairs ran along the wall opposite the back room. Tony carefully placed a foot on the first step. It creaked, but just faintly. Holding his breath in concentration he continued up to the second floor, eyes on the steps as he tried to find the best place to put his foot next.

When he reached the top he raised his head too look around and found himself staring into a pale, emaciated face, eyes glowing like the reflection of a flashlight in the dilated pupils of a cat in the dark. Unable to hold back a shout of shocked fear, Tony unthinkingly took a reflexive step back, his foot finding only empty air. Arms flailing for something to grab onto and reaching nothing, he tumbled back helplessly.

There should have been pain, he knew that, but there was just nothing. His last semi-conscious thought before everything was snatched away was that he was grateful for that. Tony had never wanted to die painfully.

* * *

When he woke back up, there was still no pain. Just stiffness and discomfort. Then Tony tried to shift and move to get more comfortable, and he found that he couldn't. With a frustrated groan he blinked his eyes open and looked around.

He was in a bedroom, on a bed with a dark wooden frame. The window was covered by thick, dark green drapes, but there was a little lamp on the bedside table to his right, with a stained-glass lamp shade in a pretty pink rose pattern that didn't fit Tony's state of mind at all. At least it let him see the dresser and vanity, matching the bed, which were the only other furniture in the room. In the wall on his right side was an door, wide open and showing the dark hallway outside. Tony couldn't see anything out there beyond the circle of light from the bedside lamp.

His hoodie had been stripped off him so he was only in his t-shirt, but still in jeans and shoes at least, and his arms were stretched out to the sides, wrists securely tied to the high, wooden headboard with what looked like a ripped up sheet that had once been white, but was now more yellow. His legs were pulled up closer to his chest and more of the former sheet had been used to tie his lower legs as close as possible to the backs of his thighs, wrapped around the middle of his thighs and shins, and with knots under his knees. Whoever had done it knew their shit, because while he couldn't move so much as an inch in any direction none of the bindings chafed or hurt or cut off the bloodflow.

Tony dropped his head back against the headboard with a thump and considered his options. They were not great. Okay, let's be honest, they were fucking non-existent. All he could do was sit there and wait to find out what the hell was going on. Even though he had a feeling that it couldn't be anything good. A part of him was sure that the best he could hope for was that he was tied up here until the cops could come by and fetch him. At worst... no, he really preferred not to think about the worst that could happen.

”Awake, I see.”

Head whipping around to face the dry, raspy voice Tony felt his heart spasm and start beating frantically behind his ribs, tied down muscles flooding with adrenaline.

The dying man was standing in the doorway. A stained shirt, as yellowing as the ripped up sheet, was draping off his wide shoulders to fall in folds around his wasted away form. Black slacks, fabric so worn it was shiny in places, were hanging off his hips. The leather belt slipped through the hoops looked half like it was helping to hold them up, half like the weight of it would make them fall faster any moment. His posture was hunched, his black hair pushed behind his shoulders so it wouldn't fall into his face, and his arms were hanging by his sides, ending in long, limp and skeletal hands.

The pale, sunken face looked even worse now that Tony could see it in the lamplight, from up close. The dark patches around his eyes looked like purplish bruises, matching the shadows across his hollow cheeks. On his high forehead was an unhealthy-looking gash, drying, grayish flesh glimpsing through the broken skin. Like his body hadn't even tried to heal the wound. Like something you'd see on a corpse.

At once Tony knew the guy was worse off than he'd ever guessed. This had to be the late stages of something truly horrible. Oh, fuck... What if it was contagious? Why hadn't he thought of _that_ possibility before sneaking into the house?

He tried to press himself harder against the wood behind his back, as if he could meld with it if he tried hard enough. Anything to get away from the man now stepping into the room, coming closer on bare, bony feet.

Tony at once wished he'd broken his neck falling down the stairs. That had to be the better option.

Then that thought made him frown a little, despite everything. If he'd fallen down the stairs he should still be in pain; even if nothing was broken he should be bruised and sore as hell. Something was off. Really off. And not only because he was tied to a bed in a seriously sick guy's house. And that was saying something...

While he had been lost in confused, panicked thought the guy in question had reached the side of the bed. He crouched down there, long, skinny legs folding under him as he picked something off the floor. Tony's backpack, he realized quickly. Those spindly hands reached into the bag and pulled something out. He blinked and recognized the cut open bike inner tube he used to tie off. Tony watched helplessly as the man stood back up, supported a knee on the edge of the bed and slipped the rubber band around Tony's upper arm. This close he could even smell the guy, all dust and dry leather and something sickly sweet under the surface.

”What the fuck are you doing?” He'd meant to bark it out, angry, but it turned to a torn whisper on the way from his lungs to his lips.

The man didn't even look up at his face. He just secured the band around Tony's bicep, just tight enough, and then ran a cold, dry thumb over the dark, swelling ridge of the vein in the crook of his tied up, tied off, unprotected arm. 

There were no track marks on his arm. Of course there wasn't – Tony was right handed, and the guy had gone for the crook of his right elbow. Well, not that there were any on his left arm either at the moment. He hadn't gotten his hands on anything worth shooting up in months.

”There we are”, the man murmured, before giving a pleased little hum in his throat and turning to reach for something on the bedside table.

It was a syringe. Tony just knew it was one from his own bag, too. Knew the orange colour of the protective cap over the needle. 

At once his mind flooded with horrible options – being injected with the man's diseased blood, with some drug tainted enough to fry his vein, something that would kill him slowly and painfully – so many of them that his brain nearly turned blank. He was almost hyperventilating with fear when he saw the man's hand shift its grip and he noticed that the plunger was still at the bottom.

The thing was empty.

Stunned, still terrified but now also thoroughly confused, Tony could just watch as the man twisted the cap off the needle and then moved closer again. His skeletal hands were surprisingly steady as one settled under Tony's elbow, holding him still, and the other slid the needle into place along his arm, unerringly finding the middle of his now plump vein, ready for the taking. The slanted tip slid through his skin with just a tiny sting of pain, gone as soon as it had come, right into his bloodstream.

The man leaned forward then, and caught the end of the rubber band between his teeth. Tony felt strange, cool breath tickle his skin, giving him chills. Then the guy pulled back and let the tie fall off his arm before he once more focused on the needle, smoothly pulling the plunger back and watching the cylinder fill up with dark blood. At the sight he made another noise, this one more like a moan.

It didn't take many seconds to finish. Then he gently pulled the needle back out, watched the bead of blood that followed. His pale, dry-looking tongue came out to lick at his thin, chapped, cracked lips, but he didn't touch it. Just watched it grow until it had to give in to gravity and rolled down Tony's elbow to drop down to the pillow under him. That at last seemed to make the man shake himself out of his staring. He snatched up the rubber band where it had fallen, moved to the foot of the bed and leaned against the wooden board there, just a bit lower than the one Tony was tied to, one leg folded up on the bedspread so he could support his right arm on it, the other leg hanging off the side of the bed.

After placing the blood-filled syringe between his teeth, surprisingly white behind his broken lips, he quickly and expertly tied his arm off, just like he'd done with Tony's, gave the loose skin in the crook of his arm a little slap, before he caressed it. As if saying sorry to himself for the rough treatment. Then he apparently found the vein he'd been looking for, picked the needle form his mouth and eased it through his skin, the tip still beading with Tony's blood. His teeth gripped the band instead, pulled it loose from his arm, and then he slowly, gently, shot the dark red fluid into himself.

Tony had always known there was a weird kind of intimacy to watching someone shoot up. The needle breaking the skin, the act of releasing chemicals to spread through your bloodstream, the way you turned helpless as the high flooded your brain. It wasn't something he'd ever liked to do in the company of strangers, and he'd never let anyone else inject him with anything. At least not outside of a hospital.

So it was with a strange, morbid sense of dark fascination he watched the man inject himself with Tony's blood. Watched as his thin eyelids fluttered low over his dark green eyes, his mouth fell open, his head dropped back and his entire body slumped at the foot of the bed in a kind of euphoric ecstasy Tony was eerily familiar with. But how the guy could feel something like that just from his blood was more than he could understand. He was completely clean at the moment, he hadn't even had anything to drink for a couple of days, so there was nothing that on second-hand use could give the guy so much as a tingle, if such a thing was even possible in the first place. Much less give this kind of high.

The man eased the needle back out once the cylinder was empty. His eyes were still closed as he rested, soaring on the high, and a faint but blissed-out smile curled the corners of his mouth. Then he blinked his eyes open and looked straight at Tony for the first time since he'd entered the room.

For a while they just stared at each other. What the guy saw Tony really had no idea, perhaps his confused horror. What Tony saw was the shadows on the guy's face lightening noticeably, the gash marring his pale forehead starting to close up until there was nothing under his hairline but smooth skin. All of him looked a little bit healthier suddenly, less dry and hollowed out.

Tony pulled his tied legs closer to his chest, as if that could protect him. ”What are you?”

Smiling a hint wider the man propped himself up straighter against the footboard. ”I do believe you already know the answer, kid.” His voice was a lot smoother now, almost oily, slippery, but unexpectedly warm. Almost weirdly fond.

And yeah, he did, didn't he? Fuck.

”I thought you were supposed to drink it”, he said, his mouth as always running when it shouldn't. ”And a lot more of it, too.”

The man huffed, amused. ”Since I found these things in your bag”, he gestured to the needle and rubber band now lying in his lap, ”I'm sure I don't have to explain to you the difference between ingesting and injecting.” He tilted his head a little. ”Do I?”

'Course he didn't. Tony had started out by snorting speed, just like pretty much anyone else in the world who had ever gotten into it, most likely. He still took it that way if it wasn't nice enough to put in his arm – that was only for the good stuff. And sure, the most of the high when you snorted it came from the drug being absorbed into the blood throught the thin, sensitive membranes in your nose. But then? Then the stuff would always drip down the back or your throat, taste like shit and burn its way down to your stomach. People didn't think of it that way, but in the end snorting a drug was basically the same as eating it. You just took the roundabout route through the nasal cavity instead of the mouth.

It was okay, but it had absolutely nothing on shooting a solution of the stuff into your vein.

So was he surprised that this was apparently the same? No, not really.

He shook his head.

”Thought not.”

Tony swallowed. ”And what happens now? You're gonna let me go?” His eyes flickered from the guy's smiling face to the dark doorway and then back. ”You got what you wanted, and you know I won't run to tell anyone about any of this, right? So just... untie me, and I'll be gone. Okay?”

For a while the man just looked at him, still smiling, still a bit amused. Then he put the things in his lap aside and crawled closer along the bed, until he was right by Tony, now grinning down into his face. His teeth really were white, and way too sharp. He still smelled as dusty and stale as the house, but now there was something spicy and musky there too, that had replaced the rotted, cloyingly sweet scent from before.

”Do you have any idea how long I have waited for someone to deliver themselves into my hands, my boy?” There was both heat and sharpness in his tone. ”Someone who won't be missed. Who fits my tastes.”

Tony couldn't speak, just blink up at the pale face, at the moss-green eyes, so much brighter now.

”Far too long”, the man continued. ”Far too long to give up this opportunity.” His grin faded to a little smirk, one shifting between amusement and what might have been a hint of pity. ”But you knew that before you asked me to let you go.”

Not a question, and Tony wasn't expected to answer. Instead a hand that was still bony and frail but less dry and wrinkled, came up to press cold fingertips to his forehead, right between his eyebrows. He thought he saw a flash of green, and then he descended into nothing all over again.

* * *

Tony was still on the same bed when he woke up, but this time he was no longer tied up. He was curled up in the middle of the mattress, the pillow under his head smelling of damp and mould, and he was cold because he had no covers and was still just in jeans and t-shirt. But he wasn't tied up, there was enough light falling in around the drapes to show that there was daylight outside, and the door to the room was still open.

He was free to just walk right out.

No, couldn't be that simple. The man had told him he wouldn't waste this opportunity, that he wouldn't let Tony go, so there had to be a catch. A fucking huge one.

Still, if he didn't at least try to escape he would regret it.

His hoodie was on the floor by his backpack, and the rubber band was even put right back where it belonged. The used needle was nowhere to be seen, though. Not that Tony wanted it back. This wasn't the kind of experience he needed a souvenir to remember. So he pulled on the hoodie, zipped the bag shut, and threw it over a shoulder and left the room. Stealthily, but as quickly as possible.

As he went he saw that there were three bedrooms on the second floor, including the one he'd been in. All were simply furnished, the master bedroom a bit more decorated, and all of it was dusty and worn and obviously not cleaned or cared for, at all. It was also all empty, no-one else in sight.

Tony hurried downstairs and quickly glanced into the back room on his way to the door where he had let himself in last night. There was no-one sitting in the wing chair. He heard no sound of anyone coming down the stairs behind him, or sneaking up on him from the kitchen or dining room. It was just him and the unlocked door. And if it wasn't unlocked he could see the lock even from here, ready to be snapped open.

Grinning, relief flooding his system, Tony reached out to grab the door handle and push it down and... couldn't. It was like there was an invisible force field around the metal, stopping his hand a couple of inches away and making it veer off its chosen path. It felt like trying to push the matching ends of magnets together – the connection refused to be made. He tried again. And again. But his hand couldn't come closer to the handle. Or any other part of the door, actually. 

The relief he'd felt was quickly turning to confused horror. What the fuck was going on here?!

Breathing harder, he pulled his right arm back and punched the door, with as much force as he could, aiming for the squares of coloured glass in the middle of it. But his knuckes just hit solid air, and bounced back. It didn't even hurt.

”Fuck... That's not right!” He stared at his hand for a moment, then at the door, before he spun on his heel and hurried into the back room, heading for the window that had let him observe the man last night. ”Just let me out, just let me out, just let -” His hand reached for the handle on the side of window and the same kind of force stopped it in its track.

”Shit!”

Frantic, panicking, he turned, casting around for something he could use to break out. His eyes fell on the book on the side table by the chair. Tony snatched it up, swung around and threw it right at the window.

It just bounced uselessly off the strangely dense air and dropped to the floor with a thud and a sad flutter of pages.

”Fuck this!” Growling, Tony pulled the backpack on properly, zipped his hoodie closed, pulled the hood down as far as it would go and the scarf around his neck all the way up to his forehead, covering his eyes. The cloth was thin enough that he still saw the lighter square of daylight and could aim for it as he backed up a few paces, until his back hit a shelf, and then ran for it. Throwing himself right at the window with his arms folded over his head.

He ended up sprawled on his back on the floor, one shoulder a bit sore from the impact, as well as his ass from the rough landing on the floorboards.

A less stubborn person might have given up there, but Tony wasn't less stubborn. And come on, two points of exit behaving the same way could still be a coincidence, right? He needed more for it to be a pattern.

All the windows and doors in the entire house acting the same was a pattern, though. Even Tony had to admit that. The only door that would open was the one to the space under the staircase. In there he found a trap door in the floor, which also happily opened to him. It led to some kind of pitch black crawl space under the house, not even deep enough to be a real cellar. The smells of damp earth and decay wafting up from there made Tony decide not to even try going down there. It gave him a serious case of the creeps.

Then, in another fit of desperation, he tried to attack a wall in an attempt to break out, and exactly the same force stopped his hands.

”No wonder he untied you”, he muttered to himself. ”You're fucking trapped anyway.”

Tony sighed, resigned, and went to lean forward, letting his head slump against the wall – and felt his forehead thump right against the wallpaper. Frowning, he leaned back again, staring at the wall he hadn't been able to touch a moment ago, and then reached out a hand, placing his palm flat on the wall. There was no force field stopping him now.

He gasped in a breath, turned, and ran to the front door, reached for the handle, chest burning with renewed hope. Perhaps whatever-the-fuck-that-was had suddenly stopped working? But then his fingers just slipped on air again, holding him away from the handle.

”You've got to be _kidding_ me...” Running his fingers through his hair he stared at the door. Then back at the wall he had touched before. And then frowned again, putting the pieces together. ”Intent”, he muttered. ”I didn't touch the wall to try to get out that time, so it didn't care.”

Still frowning, Tony turned back to the door, took a step closer, and then raised a single fingertip, aiming to place it right on the solid wood in the middle of the lower part of the door, where the touch could never help him get the door open.

”Not trying to get out”, he told the empty entrance hall at large, more to focus on the thought than anything else. ”Just wanna see if this works...”

His fingertip reached the wood of the door unhindered, and settled there as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening here what so ever.

For a few hours he tried to convince the doors and windows of the house that he had no intention of leaving, at all. He just wanted to hold the door handle. Just wanted to put his hand on the glass. No biggie. Not trying to get out. Nope. Not even a little. Come on... Just let me touch the handle for a sec. What's the worst that could happen?

It never worked. Whatever force was keeping him in the house couldn't be fooled.

By the time he was ready to finally give up and face the fact that he was a prisoner and could never get out, he also realized that he was hungry. With a sigh he made his way to the kitchen, once more noting that the place looked unused. There was a faint cover of dust on everything, so Tony's hopes weren't high when he went to open the fridge – which was so old it was pretty much an antique. As expected, it was empty. So were all the cupboards, drawers and the little pantry he found hidden in a corner. Well, empty of food, at least. There were some old plates and glasses, and some tarnished silver utensils, but nothing edible.

Turning on the water in the sink produced a few strangled coughs from the pipes, and then a rusty flow that slowly turned clear enought that Tony dared to drink it. So at least there was water, but no food.

He walked into the dining room and threw his backpack on the table, sat down and pulled it close, zipped it open and fished out one of four protein bars he had in there from his last visit to the store. It was a bit flattened since he'd landed on his back trying to leap out the window, but there was nothing wrong with it, hadn't been tampered with either as far as he could tell, so he opened the plastic wrapper and ate the thing. In small bites, chewing each one for as long as he could stand it, trying to convince his stomach that it was getting more food than there actually was. Maybe he'd have to make these bars last even longer than he'd thought when he'd stolen them.

After the bar was gone he stuffed the wrapper back in the bag, mostly in the habit of not leaving a trace, and returned to the bedroom where he'd woken up twice now. He pulled the bedspread free, curled up under it hugging his backpack, and slowly fell asleep again.


	2. Chapter 2

Loki leaned in over the boy on the bed, pulled in a breath full of the delicious scents of flesh and blood and sweat and dirt and life, and then dipped so close his lips were almost touching the delicate shell of his ear. The soft, messy half-curls of that brown hair brushing his cheek.

”Tell me, little one”, he said, softly. ”How long did you spend trying to get out of this house?”

The shape under the bedspread shifted at the sound of his voice, and the boy made a whining, protesting noise at being woken up. Then he came back to reality with a start and spun around in the bed. By the time he was moving Loki had already flitted back to the doorway so he could stand there and watch him rub a hand over his ear, through his hair, trying to get the brush of Loki's breath off himself. Even though he probably thought now that he'd imagined the man being so close in the first place.

”All day. You fuck.”

Loki was unperturbed by the crude form of address. ”Well, then there is no need for me to explain that you can't leave. Ever.”

The glare and the tense line to the boy's mouth was the only answer he got, and the only one he needed.

”So, do I need to tie you back up tonight, or can we do this a more... civilised way?” As he spoke, Loki reached into the pocket of his slacks and pulled out the syringe and needle he'd used last night. He had washed it all carefully clean, after, putting it aside to dry. The boy had only been carrying two of each, and Loki intended to make them last as long as possible. Make _him_ last as long as possible.

The wide, brown eyes took in the object in Loki's hands, then they came up to his face, a dark eyebrow pointedly raised. ”That was in your arm, dude. I'm not letting you use it on me.”

”No need to worry about that, my boy”, he assured, stepping slowly away from the door. ”My body destroys any bacteria or virus that enters it. I'm as sterile as this thing was when its packaging was still intact.” He raised the syringe, to make it even more clear what he was talking about. ”I made sure your blood was cleaned away, but you needn't worry about mine. There is precious little of it at the moment, anyway.”

Sitting up straighter on the bed, pushing the bedspread and his bag aside, the boy eyed him warily. ”Is that shit even true, or just something you're saying so I won't fight you? I mean there is no way I'm getting out of here, and I kinda doubt you're about to let me live anyway, so it's not like it would matter if you infected me with something.”

Loki smiled. This one was unexpectedly bright. And bold. ”No, it wouldn't matter. But yes, it's true even so. This needle is quite safe.”

Those dark eyes narrowed. ”But you're not.”

”Also true.” He tilted his head a little to the side. ”For the moment, however, I want nothing more than what you have already given me once. And since that did no lasting harm, I had hoped that you would allow me to do it again. Without the bondage.”

A few long moments of silent hesistation followed. Then the boy huffed, zipped his sweatshirt open and shrugged it off. ”Fine. Whatever. Not like I can stop you anyway.”

He even handed Loki the long strip of rubber when he came over to sit on the bed by his side. He did flinch away a little when Loki reached across his body for his left arm, instead of taking his right again, but he calmed down rather quickly. The skin on this arm was just as smooth and unmarked as the one on his right had been, so even with the tools he carried around the boy obviously didn't use them too often. Loki wouldn't let it stay unmarked, of course, but he would at least spread the punctures out as much as possible. By tying off the boy's arm and being careful as he worked, Loki made sure that the risk of his veins being damaged was minimal. Even if that happened there were others he could use, but these were the most easily accessible, so he preferred not to have to resort to finding new ones. The risks were more long-term anyway, and the boy had no such risks to worry about anymore. His time was running out.

After drawing another measure of blood from the smooth, sweet-smelling arm Loki leaned back against the headboard, tied off his own, and found the right spot. The vein showed up faster tonight, his body no longer all dried up, and soon he had the red rush invading him in the loveliest way. Heat and chills rushing up his arm, into his chest, and spreading from there into his entire body. A taste of milk and honey and salt was on his tongue, pleasure spiked through every long disused nerve, setting him alight before it was already fading back again, leaving him limp.

Loki rested for a moment, feeling tissues slowly fill out a little, coming back to life. It would take several more doses before he was somewhat restored, but he knew that this was a better way than taking it all in one heady, greedy gulp. His body needed time to make the most of the new energy given to it, and this way he could savour each rush like it was the first.

When he at last looked up again the boy was watching him with the same kind of reluctant interest he had glimpsed in his face the night before. It was obvious he was fascinated, but didn't want to be. But then, what someone wanted and what they craved were rarely one and the same.

And since this young man had been able to enter Loki's house, there had to be some dark kind of craving in him that had drawn him in. Allowed him passage. Perhaps it was only the desire to rob Loki blind, but somehow he doubted it was that simple. Nothing was ever that simple.

”Thank you”, he offered pleasantly. Because there was nothing to lose by being pleasant. 

The boy just wrinkled his nose and turned away.

Loki left for the bathroom and cleaned up the tools once more, leaving them on the sink to dry. He would need them again tomorrow. Or perhaps he would ask for another dose before dawn as well? Yes, he would do that.

He went to the drawing room next, settling down in his favourite chair to read, reveling in the fact that he could read more than a couple of pages at the most before he needed to rest. Now he steadily worked his way though the latter half of a book that had taken him the better part of a month to finish the first half of. Not as fast as he read when he was at the peak of power, still, but much better. Loki was so lost in the words he had no idea how long he had been reading when he heard steps approaching, stopping just inside the room.

”There's no food here.”

”Of course not”, he said, not taking his eyes off the pages.

”I need food, you know. Or I'll starve. Pretty soon, too.”

”Yes, I do know that. It's unfortunate.”

”Unfortunate?!” The boy sounded incredulous.

”Very much so”, Loki confirmed. ”I would like to keep you alive and relatively well for as long as possible, and if there was any way I could get you food, trust me, I would.” He glanced up at the boy's slightly slack-jawed face. ”Not out of concern for your health, but then I believe you knew that.” He turned back to the book, and flipped a page.

”And if I... like, broke a mirror to cut my wrists open, when you're not around. Or took a tumble down the stairs and cracked my head open. I guess that would be pretty damn _unfortunate_ too, right?”

”Are you planning on doing that?” Loki slowly raised his head and turned it to stare at the boy, who held his gaze with a surprisingly steady look of his own.

”Well, no...” He scowled. ”But I could.”

”If I suspect you of plotting any such escape, I will drain you dry in an instant”, Loki said, matter of factly. ”That would be sort of a waste so I'd rather not resort to that, but trust me, I would prefer that over the even bigger waste of having your blood all over my floorboards.” He held the boy's brown eyes for another few moments, and then returned to his book.

There was a short silence. 

”You're pretty damn fucked up, you know that?”

”Yes”, Loki agreed simply, turning another page. ”But then, so are you.”

Rapid steps came closer then, and a hand came into view to rip the book out of Loki's hands. He turned an unimpressed look up at the boy, even though it was fake. He was a little bit impressed, to be honest.

”The _hell_ did you just say to me?” The boy looked thunderous, but there was also something fearful flitting around in the deepest, darkest corners of his eyes. And Loki knew then that he had been right. The house never failed to let the right ones slip in.

”You are fucked up, kid.” With a little shrug, Loki reached out to take his book back. The hand holding it didn't resist, all the anger already draining out of the boy. ”If you were not, you would never have been able to cross my threshold. As of yet I have no idea how, or why, but I look forward to finding out.”

This time when he returned to his reading the boy didn't interrupt. He stood staring a while longer, and Loki could feel his gaze as if it had been a living thing crawling over his skin. It wasn't an unpleasant sensation; he hadn't been looked at in a long time. But then he turned and left the room.

Loki read through the night, finishing the first book and one more. Then he returned to the bedroom where he knew the boy would be, following the sweet sound of his heart, the scent of his skin and the blood under it. There were no protests and no resistance at all this time when Loki asked for more. The boy just tugged his sweatshirt off and let him do what he wanted.

Afterward he was once more staring at Loki with that strange look, shifting between fascination and disgust. But this time, he spoke.

”Can you at least give me a name, if we're going to keep this up for a while?”

”If I get one in return.”

”Sure”, the boy said with a shrug.

”Loki.”

The boy's face made a little twitch, as if saying _what the hell kind of name is that?_ , but then he gave another shrug. ”Tony.”

Loki smiled. And then quickly, too quickly for the boy to react, touched a finger to his forehead and put him to sleep. Just a light spell this time, making the suddenly limp body slump back across the bed. His eyelids were fluttering already, would open again in minutes, so Loki flitted out of the room, to the hidden stairs up to his attic. He didn't want Tony to know where they were. Not that the boy could really harm him, but he hadn't become this old by taking risks.

* * *

Tony tried to sleep the day away, as he knew Loki was probably doing. It was hard.

He kept hearing Loki's smooth, silky voice telling him that _”you are fucked up, kid”_ and wondering how the hell the guy knew? Because Tony was pretty damn sure he didn't mean the drugs or the breaking in. No, he'd said he didn't know how Tony was fucked up, and Loki was already well aware of those things.

So how the fuck did he know there was anything more to Tony?

Also, his stomach kept growling at him, and then started aching. He went to the bathroom, tried not to look at the needle drying at the edge of the sink, and then drank enough water that he could hear it slosh around in his stomach when he moved. That was enough to at least dull the ache a little, and he drifted off for a couple of hours before he woke up feeling like his body was trying to dissolve itself from the inside. So he relented and ate the second bar, staying curled up on the bed until the pain finally eased up.

It was still only early afternoon outside, from what he could tell, so he had the house to himself a while longer.

Or did he? Loki had to sleep somewhere around here, after all. If Tony could find him and kill him, maybe that would free him of whatever messed up curse kept him locked inside this house? His stomach have a little twist and a lurch at the thought, but what were his options here, really? If he stayed, he would either starve to death or be bled dry by Loki. Most likely the latter, because he didn't think the guy would ”waste” his life by letting him die any other way.

So, find Loki and end him. That was the only choice.

It took him only a little bit over an hour to find the hatch in the ceiling of the master bedroom. It was pretty well hidden, yeah, but not well enough for someone actively looking for it. Tony guessed Loki had never had ”guests” with his level of stubborn curiousity and determination before, or he would have found a better hidingplace.

Tony grinned up at the faintly visible grooves in the painted wood. ”Got you now, you bastard.”

He found a chair and pulled it up so he could reach the equally well hidden ring allowing him to pull the hatch open. Then he had to scramble to get himself and the chair out of the way of the folded up ladder-like stairs sliding down to the floor. He couldn't hold back a little giggle – half mirth, half hysteria – and then started to climb up. As soon as he stuck his head up into the attic he turned and went back to his bedroom, fished a tiny flashlight out of his backpack, and then turned back for another try.

The space under the roof was pitch black, but with the tiny, illuminating circle from the flashlight he could tell that it was also empty. At some point it had probably been used for storage, but not anymore, and it wasn't really liveable space because while the floor was pretty damn huge, the roof was so steep not even a third of the room would let Tony stand up straight. And he wasn't exactly a tall guy.

By the wall in the far end of the attic there was something, though. When Tony ran the circle of light over it he realized that it was a mattress, with what most of all looked like a pile of blankets on it. Nothing there was moving, apparently undisturbed by the light shining on it.

Tony took the last steps up on the wooden floor, which made an alarmingly loud creak under his weight. He stopped dead, heart hammering, certain something would come screaming out of the darkness to tear him apart. But the moments passed and nothing happend, so he started sneaking closer to the mattress, light locked on it like a target, carefully watching for any movement in the blankets.

None had come by the time he was standing over the makeshift bed, and none came while Tony inspected the shape stretched out on it, his heart still lodged in his throat.

Loki was almost flat on his front on the mattress. His long, skinny arms were folded up under his head, maybe because he didn't have any pillows, just the blankets. Not that he was using the blankets, really. They just formed a sort of nest around him while he was lying there, completely naked. His closest leg was angled out to the side a bit, his body curled up just a hint in the same direction.

The guy still wasn't moving. At all. Tony realized that wasn't right. Even in sleep people move. Or at the very least, they breathe. Which Loki didn't seem to be doing either. The dark shadows in the valleys between his ribs weren't shifting even slightly.

Tense, trying to swallow and failing, Tony stepped closer to the man, knelt down beside the mattress and leaned closer to watch his face. It was so much less emaciated than it had been, all of him was, that it was hard to believe it was the same person. His skin was smooth, his cheeks still hollow but no longer painfully so. The light glinted a little in his eyes and Tony almost threw himself backward in fright – until he noticed that they just weren't closed all the way. A narrow line of the greenish glow he remebered from their first meeting face to face was showing under his black lashes, but the lids were as unmoving as the rest.

He still hesitated for a moment, but then Tony reached a hand out and placed it right in front of Loki's nose and mouth, the lips relaxed and slightly parted. He held his fingers there for a long time, but he felt absolutely nothing. Was Loki already dead? Tony was sure he'd felt his breath against his skin before, so he had to be breathing, even though he wasn't human. Right? But then again he hadn't seen him breathe noticeably before, not even on the high from injecting himself, when people tended to be breathing pretty heavily.

And then he figured it out – Loki hadn't been _breathing_ , he had been smelling Tony. Clearly he didn't need oxygen, but to pick up smells he still had to pull air into his nose, and then let it out to get more. Tony was willing to bet a lot of money he didn't have that Loki, being a predator, had a pretty keen sense of smell, too. Maybe he'd even be able to sense that Tony had found him?

Shuddering a little at the thought before pushing it away, nervously licking his lips, Tony slipped his hand in under Loki's long, tangled hair. He felt the smooth, cool skin of his throat, searched for a pulse point and found none. Obviously he had to have some kind of circulatory system, since he had veins in enough of a working condition to inject himself, but it apparently functioned some other way than by using a heartbeat.

Tony sat back on his heels and studied the still body in front of him. Unconsciously rubbing his thumb over the fingers that had just been stroking the cold skin of Loki's neck.

How was he supposed to kill a guy who was basically already dead? Suffocation was out, and a stake through the heart didn't feel viable either, since Loki wasn't using it at the moment. Cutting him into pieces would probably work but... Tony started biting his lip instead as he moved the light along the tall body, all lean, sharp lines and angles, deep shadows and gray-white skin, so smooth and soft and _cold_. Unmoving, unbreathing, still as the grave.

Perfect.

At once he heard Loki's words from before, slipping into his mind like oil, staining it. _”You are fucked up, kid.”_ And Tony slapped his free hand across his mouth to muffle the keening noise that wanted to force its way out of him.

He got to his feet as fast as he could and almost fell head first down the ladder in his hurry to get away. Not once did he glance back at the body on the mattress. As quickly as he could, no longer trying to be quiet, he got the hidden ladder back up, the hatch closed, the chair back where he'd found it, and then rushed into his bedroom to hide under the covers like a child. Hoping that the monsters couldn't find him there.

Which was fucking bullshit and he knew it.

If it wasn't enough that a monster was sleeping upstairs, there was one right here, too, curled up under the covers with him.

* * *

Tony's mother died when he was nine. According to the autopsy report (which he of course didn't read until many years later) she had died of a brain aneurysm, probably in her sleep. Which explained why he'd found her still in bed, not a mark or a drop of blood on her, looking peaceful and at rest.

It had taken him a long time of shaking and shouting and finally even slapping until he accepted that she wasn't waking up, ever again.

He knew he should be calling someone for help. Tony knew perfectly well how to use the phone, and at school they'd been told about calling 911 if anyone was ever hurt or if something bad happened. And this was pretty much at the top of the list of bad things that could happen, as far as he knew. But he also knew that if he called for help they would take his mother away. They would put her in a casket and put that in the ground, like they always did in the movies, and then Tony would never see his mother again. 

That thought terrified him. He couldn't let that happen.

It had been early Saturday morning when Tony found her. Then she still looked and felt pretty much like normal, a bit cooler to the touch but not very. He crawled into bed with her, tucked himself up by her side, and stayed there most of the day. Not sleeping, just being close. And he noticed when she started to go rigid and stiff, colder and paler. It scared him, at first, but then it was just the way it was, and so that was fine too.

Even years later, his memory of that weekend was still one of the most treasured he had of his mother. Because during those days, she felt more like a mother to him than she ever had while she was alive. 

Tony could lie there and talk to her, for hours on end, and she never told him to shut up, leave her alone and go play quietly in his room. That night he could drag his favourite blanket into her room and sleep by her side, holding her still stiff hand, without her snapping that he was a big boy now and was supposed to sleep in his own bed. He slept better than he had in a long time, feeling safe by her chilly, pale side.

Right then he was allowed to love her, and he could imagine that she loved him, too. She couldn't tell him or show him that she did, of course, but now she couldn't tell him or show him the opposite, either.

He spent all of Sunday with her too, and by the time he was ready to go to sleep her body was all soft and nice again, allowing him to move her arm, putting it around him when he went to sleep. There was a huge, nasty bruise on the underside of her upper arm, where it had rested against the mattress, but he didn't look at it and made sure to cover the rest of her up under her blanket so he wouldn't have to see if there were more on the back of her legs.

The boy already had his own key to the apartment so he could lock after himself when he went to school on Monday morning. He took some money from his mother's purse to buy something to eat, and that afternoon he came back home to crawl into bed with her again.

From then on it wasn't long until Tony learned the hard way that death does not make for lasting relationships. His mother's body began to bloat, and _smell_ , and he didn't like sharing her bed anymore.

Still, he wouldn't call anyone to take her away. He just covered her up even more, shut the door to her room, and left her. She was still his mother, she was _his_ , the only person he had left in the world, and he wouldn't lose her. Couldn't lose her. _Refused_ to lose her!

In the end he had no choice in the matter, though. A neighbour got suspicious about the smell in the building and called the cops. Tony and the remains of his mother were discovered, and since his father had pulled a disappearing act before Tony was even born the boy ended up in the foster system for the next nine years of his life. Until he turned 18 and was left to fend for himself. Which he did – and pretty well if he was allowed to say so himself.

At least until he stepped through the unlocked back door of 13 Yew Tree Lane and it all went to shit.

* * *

Dusk at last allowed Loki to come fully awake. He stretched lazily among his blankets, rolling over on his back and running his hands through his hair. Then he stiffened and blinked, pulled in a long breath through his nose, and sat up with a twitch.

The boy had been here. He had been close. Very close. Loki frowned as he pulled some of his hair to his nose and sniffed. Yes, the boy had been close enough to _touch him_. While he rested.

He could remember some half dreamed impressions from the day – muffled noises, a bright light shining into his eyes, a hint of blood-scent – but he hadn't thought any of that was real. He had been certain it had all been dreams and wishful thinking, nothing more. Now he knew it had been a lot more. Tony had found him, come close enough to touch him, and then left without trying to harm him.

This one really was much brighter and bolder than any of the previous ones had ever been. 

What could have stayed the boy's hand, though? What had made him choose to let the sleeping, apparently helpless enemy be?

Loki didn't know, yet, but he had a feeling that it was all connected to whatever sort of craving had allowed the boy to walk into this house. And in time, he would find out all about it, he was sure. Dark secrets tended to rest uneasily in their shallow graves, after all.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is the chapter where things really take a turn for the dark and dirty. Find someone's hand to hold!  
> Just... don't let them read over your shoulder.

”There are no spiders here.”

Loki hummed, uninterested, and kept his eyes on the pages of his book. The boy had taken to sitting in a corner of the drawing room tonight, and a part of Loki wanted to tell him to leave, to keep away, leave him in peace. But then again he didn't have company often, and this one would be gone all too soon. He might as well try to somewhat enjoy it while it lasted.

”Does that please you?” He turned a page as he asked.

A huff came from Tony's corner. ”I'm not scared of spiders, if that's what you mean. There just... should be spiders. In a place like this, I mean. Yeah, sure, most of it is probably too damp, because spiders like dry places. But still.”

Now Loki looked at the boy's thoughtful face, dark eyes distant as he stared out the window.

”There are no bugs in here at all. Nothing living, besides me. And... you? Maybe?” Tony turned to meet Loki's eyes then. When he got no reaction to his questions he cleared his throat. ”This place is like a bubble. Like it's existing in its own dimension or something.” He tilted his head, dark eyes narrowing. ”You can't leave either, can you?”

Loki carefully gave no reaction. ”What makes you think so?”

At that Tony actually rolled his eyes. ”Duh! You were fucking starved when I got here, and I don't think that's something you'd let happen for shits and giggles. I mean you stopped me from falling down the stairs that night, didn't you? So you're both stupidly fast and strong. And you can make me unconscious with a touch, like some fucking Jedi mind trick, so yeah, no, I don't think you'd need to starve if you could leave. You said I had to... deliver myself into your hands?” He hesitated, but then pulled a breath and went on. ”Also, you said that if you could you'd get me food. But you can't. So. Obviously we can't get out, and not just anyone can get in, so no calling to have pizza delivered either...”

”Clever”, Loki offered as his only reply.

The boy gave a dismissive snort. ”Not really. That's just simple logic.” Then he frowned. ”What I can't figure out is what's keeping us here, and most people out. I mean I'm not the kind to believe in shit like that, but if I was I'd say it was magic. Or a curse, or something.” He squinted curiously up at Loki in his chair. ”Is it?”

Running his fingertips along the top of the pages of his book Loki thought about his answer for a moment. Then he gave a curt nod. ”You could call it magic, or a curse. Those are the words closest to the truth.”

”Why? I mean, why's it there? Did someone catch you in here with it? Did they want to trap you and kill you? Or what?”

Loki slowly shook his head, his own eyes drifting to the untended garden outside as he did. ”Nothing like that. It was put there to protect me. To keep me safe, to bring me the perfect victims, and to make sure they couldn't leave. That no-one could leave.”

Silence fell in the room for a while, Loki so lost in his memories that he startled a little when the boy spoke up again.

”It was you, wasn't it?” His eyes were wide when Loki turned from the window. ”You spelled your own house, but you did it too well. You locked yourself in, too. Not just others. And now you're not really safe at all.”

Loki dropped the book and was crouched over the boy in the corner so fast that to his human eyes, Loki must have seemed to teleport there from the chair. He snarled into the upturned face suddenly staring in frozen terror. ”Why would I not be safe?”

Tony choked a little as he tried to catch his breath again. ”'Cause I'm locked in here with you. And I could do anything to you.” He swallowed. ”While you're sleeping.”

Threatening a vampire with the knowledge of his restingplace? My, this one was really far too bold for his own good. He needed to learn his place.

”Oh, _anything_ is it?!” Growling, Loki slapped his palm against the wall right next to the boy's head, making him shout out in alarm, curl up and try to twitch away, hiding his face behind his arms. But Loki snatched his wrists up in his free hand and hauled them up over his head, pinning them against the wall so Tony was more or less hanging by them. Drawing out another shout, and more struggling movements that felt like caresses under Loki's palm. ”But you didn't do _anything_ to me when you found me, did you, little one?”

Tony gasped and squirmed, turning his flushed face away. But if it was flushed from the struggle or the question was impossible to say. In any case, he made no attempt to give a reply.

”Why is that? Huh?” Loki leaned in close, drawn by the tense stretch of the boy's bared neck as he turned to the side. He drew in the scent of blood close to the skin, of adrenaline and fear. ”You had me naked and so utterly helpless, after all. But you barely did more than look. Did you like what you saw too much? Is that why, Tony?” He purred the last questions with his lips brushing against the boy's neck. Tony wasn't the only one who could use simple logic, after all.

Instead of saying anything Tony pulled a leg back and managed to plant an impressively hard kick in Loki's gut. Which felt like its own kind of answer.

Loki chuckled and felt goosebumps spread under his lips, heard Tony's whimper of fear as he realized that kick had had no effect at all. ”So that _is_ why... Interesting. Tell me more.”

Shaking his head, squirming harder, probably hurting his own wrists in the process, growling, Tony seemed to be beyond words altogether. Pity. Loki would find out more later. But as of right now, he was beyond his own limit. There was only so much temptation he could resist before he had to give in to it, and this boy was being so _irresistable_.

He searched out the right spot on that hot, trembling neck, had to brush a piece of black cloth out of the way to reach the place where the pulse was thrumming right below the surface, and sank his teeth into it. At once the boy went rigid, gasping for a hitched breath. Loki let his knees hit the floor with a twin thud of bone against wood so he could pull the tense body into his lap, wrapping his arms around it. That meant Tony's own arms were free, but that made no difference.

The first hot swallow was like golden honey and sunlight on his tongue, and he sucked harder. The rush was there, although not nearly as intense as when he used the needle. Still, this let him press his lips to this living thing, let him smell sweat and terror, feel this writhing body pressed against his, struggling wildly and uselessly. It was its own kind of rush and reward.

When the boy's hands came scrabbling over the back of his neck, went to fist in his long hair, pulling frantically at it to get Loki off him, it just made Loki moan against his skin at the sensation.

”Fuck!” Breathless and desperate. ”Let go! Please...” He slumped in Loki's arms, giving up, loose-limbed as a rag doll. ”Please... I'll do anything. Just... let go?”

Slowly, Loki pulled his teeth out of the punctures, licked the last drops of blood off the broken skin, and willed a tiny flare of healing energy into the puncture wounds with the touch. Just enough to clot the blood, begin knitting the tissues back together. He really had no intention of killing the boy yet. That had just been a little taste of what he had been missing for so very long.

”Do anything...” Loki repeated in a throaty murmur as he pulled back enough to see Tony's pale, shock-blank face. ”At first you say that as a threat, now as a promise.” He grinned, felt the body in his arms shudder at the sight of his still bloody teeth. ”This anything... it must be _something_ , truly.”

The brown eyes, showing far too much white around the irises, stared up at him. Whatever ”anything” was, whatever his secret, it was clearly stirring in its grave, even though Tony wasn't ready to set it free. Not yet. But it would come. Oh yes, it would come. Digging and clawing its way out of the dirt.

For now, Loki dropped the boy to let him tumble back onto the floor, dropping with a thud and a groan into his corner. Then he flitted out of the room, too fast for Tony's eyes to follow.

* * *

The rest of the night Tony spent hiding under his covers again, which was still useless, but at least Loki didn't come for him again before dawn this time.

He couldn't believe any of this shit was even real. How was he locked up in a cursed house together with an honest to fucking god _vampire_ who had just manhandled him like he was as weak and flimsy as a paper cut-out and then actually bit his fucking neck? Yeah, sure, he'd been pretty convinced about Loki's nature before that moment, but it was still different now. As if his mind had known what was up but his body hadn't accepted the knowledge.

It did now. And it didn't like it, at all.

Trembling and shivering, breathing way to fast and his heart beating painfully hard he curled up tighter in the damp bed, biting his lip to stay quiet. A deep, instinctual kind of fear was filling him, seeping out of his very bones. He'd never felt anything like it before, but his heart knew it, knew that it was the kind of fear prey feels when it knows it's hunted. When it knows the predator is close.

And Tony couldn't even run. There was nowhere to go. All he could do was wait.

No, fuck that! With a growl he threw the covers back and sat up. He could still fight back, damnit! Yeah, he'd chickened out last time, but dawn had to be breaking anytime now, and Loki would have to sleep then. He had a new chance, and he was damn well taking it!

He rolled out of bed and hurried downstairs into the kitchen, rummaging through the drawers there, hunting for anything sharp enough to be useful. The best he found was what looked a little bit like a steak knife, but less sharp and pointy. Not what he'd have wished for, but it was what he had. Worst case, it was probably enough to at least cut Loki's head off, if he put his back into it. That should kill him, right? Had to.

Then the image of the knife in his hand slicing into Loki's soft, gray-pale throat flickered up in his mind. What had to be mostly Tony's own blood running out of the wound as the huge, green eyes stared at him, pleading for mercy, pale lips parting to speak, only letting another stream of blood out of the corner of his mouth and -

The loud, metallic clatter as the knife dropped out of his hand and hit the bottom of the sink shook him out of it. Gasping, Tony backed away from the kitchen counter and sank down in a crouch on the floor. As he went to hide his face in his hands, he realized that his cheeks were wet with tears. That made him shoot back up on his feet and slam his fists on the countertop with a scream that cut his throat with the double edge of rage and fear.

He had to do this! Right fucking now. To rid the world of two monsters at once.

Tony grabbed the knife out of the sink, returned to his bedroom to take his flashlight again, and climbed the secret, ladder-like stairs to the attic. Now he didn't hesitate in walking over to the mattress still in the same spot by the wall, finding Loki sleeping just as naked as he had been last time. Only now he was in a loose fetal position, long thighs pulled closer to his chest, head bowed down, hair a black halo around it, a hand looking so defenseless where it was curled up to rest right by his peaceful face, white palm up.

His own hand was holding on to the knife and the flashlight so hard his fingers were hurting as he slowly sank to his knees on the mattress beside Loki. Tony swallowed, ran his free hand through his own dirty hair, rubbed at his still sore neck, and told himself he had to do it. Now. Right now. Before he started _looking_ and wouldn't be able to stop...

But it was already far too late, and he knew it. He was already looking.

Tony placed his hand on the cool, smooth shoulder and pushed. The body rolled away from him without any kind of resistance, muscles loose and limp. It ended up half on its back, the legs still mostly to the side, the top one just angled slightly more toward the ceiling, shoulder blades resting on the mattress, head still facing Tony, one hand still palm up beside it, the other one resting over Loki's unmoving solarplexus.

He didn't even hear the almost tortured, mewling moan coming out of his throat in that moment. He was too lost in what he saw, and what he wanted to do to it. The concave stretch of stomach that twisted down from Loki's lower ribs to his narrow hips was begging to be touched. The tight little nubs of his faintly pink nipples would feel so perfect between his lips, cold and sweet. He groaned at the thought, and this time the sound pulled him out of his dreams to realize that he had started ro reach a hand out toward the still body.

Now he quickly snatched the hand back, and stared down at it. Trying hard not to look at Loki, who was like the essence of every secret, hidden, buried and filthy dream and fantasy Tony had ever had. Served up on a silver platter, just for him.

This was _not_ why he had come here! He'd come to put an end to Loki, not drool over him!

But if he was going to kill him anyway, what was the harm? He'd never know, right?

Loki himself had admitted that Tony'd had him naked and helpless, so there shouldn't be any risk in doing more than looking. Especially since he was going to slit the bastard's throat. He'd just do that _after_ , and everything would be fine.

A part of his mind was screaming at him that it was completely stupid to believe the word of that fucking monster when he claimed to be vulnerable, because why the hell would he be honest about something like that? Why would he outright tell Tony that he was at his mercy during the day? It made less than zero sense.

Tony ignored it. Not only that – he shut it down, shut it up, pushed it away. He wasn't interested in sense. He was interested in what he could have, right here and now.

That want merged with his denial, and turned into the thought that what Loki had really meant was that Tony was welcome to do this. Exactly this. It had been an invitation. What else could it be?

That thought at last made Tony drop the knife on the floor beside the mattress. He propped the flashlight on the blankets in a way that made the light fall on most of Loki's body, while leaving both his hands free to use. He could clearly see how his right one trembled when he placed it on Loki's thigh, right above the knee, and let his palm and fingers slide all the way along smooth, hairless skin to the angle and jut of his hipbone, still so prominent under his barely-there flesh. The touch made Tony's fingers brush along the side of Loki's ass, the skin there even softer, just as chilled.

He continued up to the dip of the slim waist, along the sleek lines of abdomen, to the perfect arches of the ribs. His fingertips sank gently into the valleys between them, then ran over the ridges, all the way up to one of those pink nipples. It was as cold as the rest but oddly smooth, as if it was there just for the visual appearance. Tony didn't care. He still leaned down and nibbled at it with his lips, moaning at the sensation, then quickly moving to the other one. It was like a cold shock against his mouth after the first one had started getting warmed up by Tony's touches.

Panting, shivering, Tony pulled back and stared at the body in front of him, drank in every detail.

This was nothing like the times when he'd given into his urges before. That had only been with people who'd been unconscious, but it had been the closest he'd ever been able to come to what he really wanted – the cold comfort of a corpse.

First time had been a kid who had passed out in a guest room at a party after Tony had sold him some heroin. He'd been pale, limp as a rag doll, but with a raging hard-on bulging in his skinny jeans. Tony, who was far from sober himself, had gone to lock the door and then returned to the bed, stroking and petting the pliant, helpless kid. It hadn't been in any really intimate way, and mostly on top of his clothes so the spell wouldn't be broken by Tony feeling the warm skin. The unmentionable fantasies swirling in his mind had still made him cum in his pants. And then he'd stayed a while longer, just enjoying the presence of the limp body beside him. 

But the kid had been alive, breathing. There had been a heartbeat, although slow and sluggish.

Then he'd had a girlfriend for a while who needed sleeping pills that knocked her out completely when she took them. She'd told him that if he felt like it, he could fuck her while she slept. She liked the idea of being helpless and used, she'd said. For a short time Tony had thought he was in heaven, that this was enough, that he could live like that and be content.

But she was always alive, warm and breathing and with a steady pulse.

It wasn't enough. Tony wasn't content. After a while even his fantasies couldn't make up for what was lacking and then he couldn't get it up anymore. Not when she was awake either. Even less then, actually.

He'd left pretty quickly, already knowing then beyond a doubt what Loki had told him later – he was fucked up. Totally, thoroughly, undoubtedly fucked up.

He'd left quickly, because somewhere in the dark, dirty, desperate back of his mind a nasty little voice had started to whisper that she could still be what he wanted. It would be so easy to fix those remaining flaws in her. He'd just have to slip a plastic bag over her head when she fell asleep, and it wouldn't take more than a couple of minutes, tops, and then she would be _perfect_...

Tony had turned tail and ran.

This was different. It was easy to forget that Loki was, in his way, alive. He could free his twisted mind to wallow in the idea that this was a corpse, laid out for his pleasure. Cold and limp, never pulling a breath, no thrumming pulse under the pale, grayish skin.

Moaning again, helpless to stop the sound coming out of him, Tony moved his hand back down to Loki's legs, pushing at the knee of the top one to make it stretch out along the mattress. Leaving the front of the body completely exposed to his hungry eyes. The smooth, pale skin was hairless everywhere, which was weird but not in a bad way. The flaccid, uncut cock nestled in the hollow of Loki's hip looked normal, though the balls behind it were small, almost tucked up in the body. Just like the nipples Tony had the feeling they were mostly for show, something to make Loki at a glance appear more human than he was.

At the moment it was a detail Tony just noticed in passing as his fingers caressed their way back down the inside of the cool, supple thigh, brushed along the length of that soft cock, noting how the skin there was darker gray than the rest. His breath hitched and he became suddenly, intensely aware that he was so hard it felt like he would burst out of his jeans at any moment. At once he couldn't stop thinking about it and how painful it was, even though he just wanted to keep touching, tasting...

”Fuck...” It was a pained whisper slipping out as he leaned down again and nuzzled and licked his way up the body's lower abdomen. From the valley between the hipbones, across the bellybutton that was also just for show – just a little hollow lacking the scarred knot of skin in the middle – and up to the dip under Loki's sternum. Where he had to brush the limp hand resting there out of the way to reach it.

When he'd come that far he just couldn't go on. His head felt light as a soaring balloon, his body heavy and tingling, his crotch was a burning inferno of blood and need. It was too much.

Gasping for breath, whining with every exhale, Tony scrabbled for the flashlight, remembered the knife only because he stepped on the thing when he stood back up, and picked that up too before he hurried downstairs and closed the hatch. He wasn't sure where he'd been going until he found himself in the bathroom, the flashlight and knife discarded on the floor, his fingers desperately tugging at the front of his pants as he stepped over to the claw-footed bathtub. Some barely there, old, ingrained habit telling him to cum where it'd be easy to wash off later was guiding him now more than any conscious thought.

He put a knee on the edge of the tub, leaned in, supported himself on the tiled wall with his left hand and freed his cock from his underwear with some difficulty. It was all steel under the tight, flushed skin.

He only just had time to get it out and run one, rough stroke down the shaft before he came so hard he saw stars and felt like he was about to black out. Tears were streaming down his face as he worked himself through the climax and he didn't even notice.

At last he stumbled back from the tub, had to support himself on the edge of the sink to not collapse on the floor. He closed his eyes and tried to catch his breath before he went to wash his cum off the stained side of the tub as well as he could with the rusty water out of the disused tap. Then he picked his things up off the floor, went to the bedroom, hid them in his bag and fell on the bed.

There was no way he could sleep, though. His mind was a thorny chaos of horror, disgust, and a darkly burning elation.

* * *

There wasn't even a sliver of doubt in Loki's mind that Tony had been visiting him in his sleep. He had the faint memories of light again, along with slow, burning lines of touches. As if that wasn't enough he was surrounded by the scents of the boy, laced with a heady thread of arousal that was impossible to miss. He was also in a different position than he had fallen asleep. Since he never moved during the day, unless somehow threatened, he knew he had been repositioned by the boy. Turned over on his back, touched, and... licked? He ran a palm over his stomach and brought it to his nose, catching the lingering smell of saliva. Yes, definitely licked.

Loki stayed in the position where Tony had left him, breathing in the scent of horny human, and let his mind wander. It was obvious that the boy had been aroused by him, but he saw nothing in his behaviour during the night that gave that fact away. Tony wasn't turned on when they were around each other, he didn't attempt to get close, he said nothing that would hint at flirtation or a proposition. And Loki would have known the signs – humans had tried to offer their flesh to him in that way before, hoping in vain to distract him from what he really wanted to take from them.

Frowning up at the darkness Loki began putting the pieces together. The knowledge that Tony carried around some dark, secret craving, his clear arousal when Loki was asleep and only then... He blinked and his eyes went wide. Oh... Tony didn't want _him_ , he wanted his seemingly lifeless body.

Could that truly be it? Why, the boy seemed to be even more fucked up than Loki could have ever guessed. He felt his lips stretch over his sharp teeth in a feral grin.

He finally rolled off the mattress, got dressed and went downstairs. He wasn't quiet and secretive about it anymore. There was no use.

Following the hot scent trail of Tony's arousal led him to the bathroom. In there he was greeted by the thick, cloying, rich mineral scent of seed. The grin flashed by on his face again as he turned to the sink to pick up the syringe waiting for him. It was only fading with some effort while he walked to Tony's bedroom, wondering what state he would find the boy in.

As it turned out, he was curled up on his bed with his arms around his knees and his back to the door. He didn't move even when Loki came to sit down beside him on the bed, although the pattern of his breathing and pulse told Loki that the boy was awake. Awake and tense as a bowstring.

”I need your arm.”

For a few seconds Tony stopped breathing altogether. Then he gave a shaking sigh and slowly turned on his back, sat up, pulled his sweatshirt off and shuffled back on the bed until he was beside Loki by the headboard. He never looked up as he did this, or when he stretched his right arm out in Loki's general direction.

”Thank you.”

Loki didn't have the rubber band at hand this time, but he didn't waste time looking through the boy's bag for it. He just closed his long fingers around Tony's upper arm, applying the right amount of pressure to allow blood into the limb, but not letting it back out. The now twice punctured vein obediently swelled under the skin, eager for the needle, and Loki happily obliged.

He then rolled up the left sleeve of his shirt while holding the filled syringe between his teeth. He could feel the heat of the blood inside against his tongue, even through the plastic cylinder. There was no real need to tie his own arm off before the injection. It just made it slightly easier to hit the vein, especially when it had been as dried up and collapsed as the first time. It was far plumper now, showing clearly under the skin, and he had no trouble piercing it.

Afterward, resting to savour the lingering euphoria, he glanced up to find Tony staring at him. The boy practically oozed shame and denial and pain, and he quickly looked away when he saw Loki looking. But he stayed beside him on the bed, just moved from the headboard to where he had left his sweatshirt and pulled it back on, not caring about the drops of blood on his arm staining the inside of the sleeve.

For a while they stayed just like that, unmoving, silent. Then – to Loki's surprise – Tony broke the silence.

”Will I become like you?” The boy was rubbing the side of his neck, the spot where Loki had bitten him last night, not looking up. There was something absent in the gesture and his words, as if he didn't really care, didn't believe it. Just filling the silence with something other than the thoughts plaguing his mind.

Loki huffed out an amused noise. ”That is not how this works. My kind are born, just like yours. You cannot turn from one into the other. Although it might seem like it, on the surface.”

Tony glanced at him with a frown, the first look at Loki since he had entered the room. ”What do you mean?”

With an unnecessary sigh Loki started rolling down the sleeve of his shirt, relaxing back into the headboard. ”My kind are very much like humans when we are young. We are less pale, our hearts beat and we breathe the air like you, we have no compulsion to rest during the daylight hours, and we can eat the same food as you, even though we even then prefer meat over anything else.”

”Why?”

”To be taken in by humans, of course. They see our adorable, defenseless young left on their doorsteps and they take them into their homes, adopt them as their own, love them and care for them and protect them from danger. And all is well, until the child reaches puberty and all human pretense withers away. Our hearts grow useless, our teeth sharp.”

He could see Tony swallow. The boy didn't try to ask any more questions.

”My first kill was the boy who had grown up believing me to be his brother.” Loki could hear how dispassionate his own voice was. This had all happened so long ago, it barely felt real anymore. ”He was such a good-hearted, sweet, trusting fool, and getting close to him was simple. It was no clean kill by any means. I was weak, still, and guided only by instinct in my lack of experience. But he was so stunned by disbelief at what I was doing to him that he didn't even try to fight me.

”His mother was just as trusting, and oh, how well she loved me. I was the second child she had never thought she would have after an illness had made her barren, and I was treasured.

”His father, on the other hand, he never truly trusted me. I hid from his anger and suspicion many times behind his wife's skirts, since she always believed me innocent.” Loki smiled. ”We are such skilled actors, you see? Manipulators, liars, illusionists, tricksters.

”So I knew I had to take him last. When the blood from the two others had made me strong enough. And I did. He was my first clean kill.” Loki tipped his head back and frowned thoughtfully up at the ceiling. ”He didn't truly deserve that. His wife was far more worthy of a quick, easy death.” He sighed. ”Well. It is what it is.”

Silence settled over the room for a long while after he ended his story. The one he had never told anyone before. Loki was far from sure why he had shared it now. Perhaps he had just needed to say the words at least once, release them into the world.

Then Tony cleared his throat softly. ”How long ago was that?”

Loki's frown at the ceiling deepened as he counted. ”Four hundred years. Give or take.”

”How long have you been trapped here?”

”Twenty two years, seven months and two days.” He didn't have to think about that answer.

”How long since you last had a... well, visitor?”

”When you came along, it had been seven years, nine months and fifteen days since the last one... expired.” She had been a mentally broken down waif of a girl looking for an abandoned place to kill herself. Loki had made the process more drawn out than she had wished for, but in the end she still had her way.

”Fuck.”

There wasn't much to add to that, and again there was silence, until the shift and slide of cloth against cloth announced that Tony was moving. Loki turned his gaze from the ceiling to find that the boy had turned fully toward him on the bed, even coming a hint closer in the process.

”It really is damn unfortunate for you that I'm about to starve to death in here, isn't it?”

”Yes.”

”Well that's something we can agree on, then.”

When silence fell again, Loki left to clean the syringe and then went to his waiting wing chair in the drawing room.

There was nothing left to say.

* * *

Early the next day Tony sat on his bed, fingers slowly toying with the last of his protein bars, staring at the thing but not really seeing it.

He had fully expected to be confronted about what he'd done the night before. Loki had to know, right? And he had been so clear about wanting to find out in what way Tony was as fucked up as he was. But no, nothing. Loki had just politely asked for more blood, even told parts of his own story, answering Tony's curious questions, and then left quietly. Not a word about Tony's indiscretions.

It strengthened his sense that it really had been an invitation from Loki, saying he was welcome to use his body when he was asleep. That ex girlfriend of his had done the same, after all.

Tony shouldn't take him up on it, though. This was wrong. What he wanted wasn't right. It was fucking sick.

But ”should” was rapidly losing ground in his mind. It made an effort to yell louder than his other thoughts, and he pretended to listen. But the rest of him knew it was all an act when he put the bar away, pulled the knife and flashlight from the bag and went to the attic. His surface thoughts were chattering on about slitting Loki's throat, but under them was the raw, putrid, disturbed rest of his mind, whispering about what he really wanted to do. Softly enough that he could pretend he didn't hear.

Loki had his back to the room this time, again in the same fetal position but turned the other way.

Tony put the knife on the floor, propped the flashlight up similarly to last time, and then didn't hesitate to grab the unresisting body, arranging it on the mattress the way he wanted it. To make things easier. Still pretending that ”things” meant trying to kill him, not even bothering to come up with an excuse for why he was stretching Loki out flat on his front, if that was really the case. He let the long arms frame the head of tousled, black hair, but made sure the peaceful face was turned toward the light. He wanted to be able to see it.

As he knelt astride one of Loki's thighs, running his hands along the long, slim stretch of back, feeling lines of resting muscle and the bumps of vertebrae, the nagging thoughts about what he _should_ be doing were quickly becoming muttered background noise. Static. Meaningless.

By the time Tony's fingers were slipping down between Loki's spread legs every part of his mind except the greedy, primitive one feverishly chanting _want want need want need want need need need!_ had shut down, nothing guiding his movements but that compulsion.

What his fingertips found as they explored the crevice of Loki's ass made at least a tiny, curious part of his higher functions flicker back to life though. Because this was unlike anything he'd ever felt before.

There was an orifice in the expected place, but it felt nothing like a human's asshole would. Remembering the story Loki had told him, Tony figured that since Loki had eaten normal food as a kid he must have had a working digestive system back then, a way to absorb the needed nutrients and discard the refuse. That was centuries ago now, though, and since then this part of Loki's anatomy had obviously become obsolete, just like his heart. Leftovers from an earlier stage of development, no longer needed.

Now, the muscles holding the opening into Loki's body closed were pliant, weak, not at all like the tight rings Tony remembered feeling on earlier explorations like this one. They had no reason to be strong, so they weren't. The only purpose of the muscles now was apparently to cinch the skin neatly together, and when Tony's fingers probed for entrance they offered no hint of resistance, butter-soft and yielding, like they weren't even there.

After that discovery it wasn't surprising to find that Loki's insides felt completely alien as well. And not just because he was as cold as Tony had known he would be, had dreamed that he would be. The walls of his intestine were dried up, no longer had the slight slick of membranes, it was all papery, there was no real give to it, and it was thoroughly unwelcoming. For all intents and purposes, Tony supposed, it was essentially dead tissue. Loki might be alive, in the way his kind was, but this was tissue his body had washed its hands of and given up on. This was dead.

And the needy chant in Tony's head was suddenly a deafening roar.

He pulled his fingers free of the cold body, moaning at the way the soft skin dragged over his knuckles, as if unwilling to let him go. He shuffled to place himself between Loki's legs. Then he quickly went to unzip his jeans, push them and his underwear down his thighs, gathered as much saliva as he could in his mouth and spit in his palm. Then again, and a third time.

Using spit as makeshift lubricant was something that worked damn poorly, at best, and Tony knew that. But he was lightyears away from caring. So when he grabbed the body's left ass cheek and made room enough to align himself and start pushing in he already knew, on a distant level, that this wouldn't be comfortable. 

And it wasn't. The slick of the saliva allowed him to thrust all the way inside, but by then it had already done what it could and it was just Tony's cock and the dried up, brittle inner walls of Loki. It started chafing almost at once, then burned, and he had the patience to rub some more spit on himself then. But after that he was too far gone to care even about the pain. It was nothing compared to the exultant, roaring ectasy spreading through him.

He was leaning heavily in over the body under his, not remembering how he'd gotten there, reveling in the loose-limbed way the limp flesh was moving with his thrusts, when he looked up. Searching out Loki's face.

The huge, green eyes were open when he found it. Not all the way, but enough that the glow reflecting the light was burning into him. Loki's mouth, which he remembered had been closed, now showed a gash of black between parted lips. He was at least partially awake. He was watching, but apparently still helpless to stop what was happening to him.

Tony couldn't read the expression in those eyes, didn't know if it was pained and pleading or meant pleasure.

It made no difference because either way, it didn't stop him. The point of no return was so far behind him it was just a speck in the distance, and he was hurtling into damnation too fast to consider pulling on the breaks.

Tony came with a breathless, wordless shudder. It felt like every last little remaining shred of what had made him human came rushing out with the semen. And he didn't even care.

The best he could hope for was that Loki would be in such a rage at what Tony had done to him that he would kill him quickly, forget that he wanted to drag it out. Tony's time was almost up anyway. At least he'd gotten the closest thing he would ever have to what he had dreamed about most of his miserable, messed up life.

And it had been worth it.


	4. Chapter 4

When the body invading his and the artifical light burning into his eyes had both left, Loki quickly slipped back into his daytime rest. His body had briefly reacted to a perceived threat, but realizing there was none it dropped its vigilance and returned to slumber. Dreams more vivid than usual followed him into the depths. The look in Tony's eyes was the clearest image of all; the pupils blown so wide those eyes were black rather than brown, a soul-wrenching kind of pleasure burning like a fire in the depths of them, purging the last remnants of shame from him. He'd known that Loki saw him, but it had been clear that he was beyond caring.

The buried secret had clawed its way out of the soil covering its shallow, restless gave and was free to roam the earth. Nothing Tony did now would put it back in the ground, and Loki highly doubted that the boy had any wish left to try anyway.

As sundown lured Loki back awake he was intrigued, fascinated, and more than ever felt that it was so very unfortunate that the boy would die soon. Admittedly that was mostly because he wanted more of his delicious blood, the sweet taste of his heart, but it was also a long time since he had met anyone who genuinely interested him. Humans rarely did, and he had only met members of his own species a handful of times during his four centuries.

This boy, he made Loki want to know more. He wanted to know what had warped and twisted him into this marvelous mess, know how the inside of his mind felt and functioned. He wanted to hear him speak of midnight secrets, filthy dreams and wolf hour whispers. Drain more from him than the blood out of his veins.

Though in a way he already had, he thought with a quirk of a smile as he reached a hand behind himself and ran a couple of fingertips through the sticky, drying mess Tony had left half in, half on him. The smell of it was familiar, since Loki had picked it up in the bathroom the night before, but that had been mostly washed away and now it was much stronger and everywhere. Even stronger when he brought his sticky fingers to his face and curiously drew in more of that scent, letting it curl thickly at the back of his mouth. There was some quality to it that faintly reminded Loki of blood. He thought he might actually be able to ingest this, although it would most likely not do much for him. But this was thick and half dried, stale and cold, and Loki didn't want it, so he rubbed his fingers clean on a blanket before he sat up and reached for his clothes. Then he thought better of it and used the same blanket to wipe his backside clean before dressing.

(Now, there was an act he had thought he would never have to perform again...)

Pulling his worn slacks on, noting that he no longer needed the belt to keep them fitting securely around his hips, Loki briefly considered the fact that what Tony had done to him was an act of rape. His ancient, calculating mind turned this idea over and then set it aside, finding that it didn't spark any interest.

He was by nature a creature surviving on taking other beings against their will, a form of rape that reached even deeper than violating the flesh, tearing out life and soul by the roots.

Rape in this form was far removed from his urges. His kind had no real sexual drive the way he had concluded that humans did; their satisfaction was derived in other ways, felt on another level. Reproduction for them was more a choice than a drive, an act they needed much blood and vast quantities of power to manage, and they rarely made the choice. Which meant there were precious few of them walking the Earth, but most of the ones surviving to adulthood were very powerful creatures.

Yes, Tony had been bold in taking such liberties with Loki's sleeping body, but it had left him unharmed, if a bit soiled, and he could feel no resentment. If anything, this only deepend his growing interest in the boy, his wish to know him. A strange warmth, something resembling affection, was coming to life inside him, illuminating his dark mind with a soft glow.

They were in many ways the same, both craving a satisfaction that by its very nature could only be stolen. A dead body could never consent, and a living one could never welcome death – even if the soul inside of it sometimes did.

Loki pulled on his shirt and buttoned it as he walked away from his restingplace. He felt a tug somewhere behind his sternum, a need singing in his bones, and he knew where to find what he wanted.

When he entered Tony's bedroom the boy was there, as he had known he would be, but he wasn't on the bed where Loki usually found him. He was sitting on the floor in a corner, half hidden behind the dresser, arms around his pulled up legs, head bowed. His dark hair was falling down his forehead but it looked like his eyes were closed. Not sleeping, but not tense either this time, more like he was drifting. 

He never heard Loki approach, the steps of his bare feet too soft against the floorboards, and he startled badly when Loki crouched in front of him and settled his long, white hands along his upper arms. Tony's head flew back so fast it hit the wall with a thump, his eyes wide and staring for a moment, but then he slumped into the corner again. Not relaxed so much as resigned.

”I'm hungry, Tony.” He curled his fingers around the boy's biceps, pulling gently. ”Come. The bed is more comfortable.”

Letting himself be tugged onto his feet Tony then followed to the bed in slow, shuffling steps, as if his legs were numb and reluctant to obey. He dropped with a bounce on the edgeof the mattress and sat staring in front of himself when Loki joined him, wrapped an arm around his waist and pulled him close. The boy mumbled something barely audible even to Loki's sharp hearing, but at least he picked up the word ”needle”, and understood.

”No, little one.” He dragged Tony closer still, flush against his body. ”Not tonight. I want the taste of you.” And he truly did prefer that right now, he realized. He wanted this twisted, tortured creature as intimately close as possible, while he still could.

The body in his grasp shuddered but didn't resist as Loki tipped them over on the rumpled covers. Both on their sides, one of Loki's legs pinning both of Tony's in place, his topmost arm around the boy's back, the one under them cradling the brown-haired head, tilting it out of the way. One of Tony's arms was trapped, folded up between their chests, the other came around Loki's back in turn, clutching at his shirt.

They might have looked like lovers like that, embracing, and it might have felt that way too if not for the way Tony's breath was hitching in rising fear, his body turning tense in Loki's arms, his hand fisting harder in the cloth of the shirt, tugging uselessly at it.

Hushing him softly, breath brushing past the shell of Tony's ear, Loki tilted his head forward and felt out the right spot. When his teeth slid home the boy tensed even more as something like a sob racked his body. Loki could taste his terror, the sharp tang of it vivid on his tongue, and wondered what had the boy so worked up this time. He should be used to this by now, shouldn't he?

Then he swallowed and couldn't wonder about anything more.

* * *

Tony was in a state of shock when Loki came for him, lost to the world, and he barely recognized that the vampire was actually there with him until they were already tangled up on the bed, his neck bared for the bite.

When the needle-sharp points of Loki's teeth tickled his skin and then broke it, Tony knew he was as good as dead. He hadn't seen the look on that pale, narrow face but how could there be anything there but rage and hate? As soon as he had seen those glowing eyes watching him he'd known he would pay for that moment of blissed-out ecstasy, and right then he had accepted it. It had felt worth it. It was still worth it, really. But in theory that was one thing. Feeling a cold mouth attach to your neck, drinking the life right out of you, that was another thing entirely.

He thought he had accepted death, but the body has its own kind of will, and it didn't give one single fuck about Tony's willingness to die for his sins. It wanted only to live.

So his body panicked. It panted and sobbed and struggled, squirming in Loki's unbreakable hold on it.

That's when he registered the way Loki's hand was stroking his back. There was nothing harsh or hateful about it at all, it was just slow and soothing and soft. Comforting, kind of. He had no idea how that was possible after what he'd done, but right then he wasn't in a position to reject any comfort he could get.

Feeling that hand slowly rub circles over his ribs and shoulder blades, Tony was at last able to pull a deep, slow, proper breath again. He relaxed, allowed himself to be pulled tight against Loki's body, and felt the vibrations against his neck as Loki gave a soft hum of approval. And the shiver spreading from that point of contact right then wasn't only revulsion.

Maybe he was still being killed, but at least it wasn't in anger. And it wasn't very painful. Not really painful at all, actually, once he'd stopped resisting and went still under the teeth in his neck.

There were worse ways to go.

Tony had barely had that thought pass through his mind before he felt the pressure of Loki's mouth against his skin let up, those sharp teeth slide out of his skin, and the slow drag of a slightly rough tongue that felt oddly warm. Warmer than it should be just from Tony's blood. Almost hot. But only for an instant. Then chilly lips came to place a light kiss on the heated, just slightly sore spot on his neck.

Struggling to make sense of this sudden affection, Tony felt new tears slip down his cheek. Silent ones this time, weary, resigned tears. He felt no regret, no real shame either. He was beyond those things. All he wanted now was an end he could live with.

Gently Loki untangled himself from him, getting off the bed, and Tony pulled a shuddering sigh as he curled up on the covers. He felt empty and broken and worn down, the shock finally draining out of him, his body reminding him suddenly that he hadn't slept or eaten properly in a long time, and he needed rest.

He blinked away tears caught in his eyelashes and glanced up to find Loki standing in the doorway, smiling softly at him. As he watched, a pale pink tongue came sneaking out to lick a drop of blood off his lip, and then the smile widened without showing teeth.

”Sleep, my boy.”

And maybe Loki spelled him then, maybe he didn't. Either way Tony fell asleep instantly and didn't wake up until what he figured out had to be the late afternoon the next day. He dragged himself out of bed and ate the last protein bar. Then he went to the bathroom to fill the rest of his belly with water, and after that he felt better than he had in days.

Tony went to sit on his bed again, trying to think things through properly, figure out what had really happened here. He was far from sure he could. This was way beyond simple logic now. Way beyond logic at all, most likely, because he really couldn't make sense of why Loki was treating him so gently and affectionately. Was it because Tony's rationalization had actually been true, that Loki had meant to invite him to use him? Or something else? He felt sure he'd never know how that man's head worked. No matter what, it was pretty damn obvious that Loki didn't mind what he had done. Sort of the opposite, apparently.

His own mind wandered then, reveled in wishful dreams and fantasies of how he could have everything he had ever wanted, right here. Have that perfect, willing body to play with every day. One that would never swell up and rot and smell too horribly to hold on to, rest beside, give him the only true love and comfort he had ever known. 

Paying in blood for that privilige felt perfectly reasonable, and he knew he could do that too, if that's what it would take.

There was only one thing standing in his way – his own death. Which couldn't be far away now. How long could you live without food? He didn't know, but no more than a week he guessed. How long while someone was slowly draining your blood? Significantly less, for sure.

Tony hunched up, buried his face in his hands with a groan.

If only he could get some fucking _food_ , then everything would be different. Tony wouldn't have to starve then, and by extension neither would Loki. They could both have every single thing they wanted, _right here_ , if only -

He suddenly twitched upright again, a brightly burning flash of an idea searing through his brain. Several quick blinks. Mouth dropping open.

”Intent”, he muttered to the room at large.

Okay, so maybe this wouldn't work. Probably wouldn't. But he'd regret it if he didn't try his damndest, right?

Tony did then what he had meant to do the first time he came into this house – he robbed it. He thoroughly searched through every shelf, cupboard, drawer and wardrobe and in the end found an old, dusty, damp-smelling collection of bills, a few coins, and a small, forgotten gold ring in the back corner of the drawer in the vanity in his own room. No huge fortune, but it would do. He left the ring and a few of the larger bills in the vanity, shoved the rest of the money into his pocket, pulled on his hoodie, took his backpack, and went to the back door that had let him in what felt like ages ago.

Now he was hoping it would do him a solid and let him back out. He knew it hadn't wanted to before, but things were all different now.

Tony had wanted to leave then, which the house wouldn't allow. Now he didn't.

Stopping right inside the door to pull a deep breath, he filled his mind with his deep, sincere, genuine wish to never, ever leave, let is flood through his entire being. Then he reached out, grasped the door handle, and pushed it down. Tony stepped out into the last of the dappled, golden afternoon sunlight, the green scent of the overgrown back yard, and then shut the door behind himself.

* * *

The instant Loki's eyes opened that night he knew something was horribly wrong. Perhaps he had sensed it even in his slumber.

Since Tony had walked into the house he had been able to hear the boy's steady heartbeat echoing through it, had always been able to tell where he was by the soothing sound of its contractions and expansions and the whispering rush of the blood it pumped through his flesh. Now there was nothing but silence under his roof.

Loki flew off his mattress, tugged his clothes on so fast he nearly ripped them, all the while thinking about what Tony had once threatened him with: _”If I broke a mirror to cut my wrists... Or took a tumble down the stairs and cracked my head open...”_ Wondering if the boy could have done something like that, robbing him of the last few meals he could have had from his veins.

But then he forced himself to calm down, think, and use his senses. All of them.

There was no scent of stale blood in the air as he climed down from the attic, and that would have been everywhere if the boy had cut himself open. There was really no scent of his body at all, Loki slowly realized. No heartbeat, no scent except for what he had left behind, now slowly fading in his absence. Nothing. He knew what it had to mean, but it was so impossible that he still felt the overpowering urge to search through the whole house before could accept it, flitting from room to empty room, nothing moving there but shadows and dust.

When he ended up staring at Tony's still rumpled bed, as empty as the rest of the house, he had no choice but to face the truth. The boy was gone. He had left. 

_How?!_

It shouldn't be possible! No-one had ever left this house since Loki cursed it, unwittingly binding even himself inside it by the power of his own blood. No-one! And oh, how hard he himself had tried! Over and over, for _years_ , scratching and screaming and wasting so much precious power trying to blast his way out. All for nought.

And along comes this bright, bold, deliciously twisted boy – and walks right out.

This shouldn't be happening. This shouldn't be possible. He couldn't be left alone again, not like this! Not so unprepared! 

Loki was trembling violently now, hands clutching at his own upper arms, embracing himself and finding no comfort in the gesture what so ever.

He had been so certain he had time, that he would have more blood to drain out of the boy before he would need to starve again. So certain he could go into the solitude stronger this time, after speaking more with Tony, finding out more about him. That Loki would have those memories to fondly return to when the human was nothing but bones buried in the soil under the house, where he had put the others before him.

He'd been wrong. Horribly wrong.

By the time Loki's fingers were digging into his biceps so hard he was half worried the bones under them might snap, he heard noises from downstairs. The faint metallic click of the front door opening, which he hadn't heard in years, the screeching creak of the disused hinges, some shuffling and soft steps and thuds and an odd, faint, crinkling noise he couldn't place for the life of him. More creaking and a sharper click as the door was pushed shut.

And then, bizarrely, Tony's voice calling through the house. ”Honey! I'm home!” Tone light and clearly amused, almost giddy.

Loki was out of the bedroom, down the stairs, through the hallway and had Tony roughly pinned against the front door faster than the human could blink. He barely noticed more of the crinkling sound as something by his feet was pushed aside and fell over when he came closer. Focus completely on Tony's face, where stunned surprise was quickly fading into a smile.

”What is the meaning of this?!” Hissing, Loki shook the boy, making the back of his head rattle against the coloured glass on the door. ”You were gone!”

”Yeah, I was.” Now, Tony sounded more serious, almost soothing, but there was still a sparkle in his brown eyes, faint lines from a lingering smile at their corners. ”I left, but then I came back. Okay? I came back.” His hands came up between them, splaying out like warm stars across Loki's chest. Not pushing at him, just resting there, almost as if in some sort of reassurance.

_I left._ Said so simply, as if it was nothing! _I came back..._

”How?” He made his grip on the boy's shoulders ease up a little, but didn't let go.

”The house knows your intentions, right? So if you have even the slightest thoughts about leaving, it won't let you”, Tony said, holding his confused gaze as his tone turned even more serious, intense. ”I didn't want to leave. I just needed to find food. But the house knew I'd come back. So, it let me out.”

Find food? With a frown pinching his face Loki turned his head and saw the plastic bags on the floor now, one toppled over and its contents rolled out on the dusty floorboards. None of the items were recognizeable to Loki as edible, all metal and plastic and far too many bright colours, but he supposed it could be food. Humans ate the strangest things.

He slowly backed away from Tony, watched him flash a smile and then bend to start picking up the things off the floor, moving to put them away in the kitchen storage. As he busied himself with his human concerns, Loki wandered off to the drawing room on legs and feet numb with lingering shock and confusion. He let himself bounce down in the wing chair, put his left elbow on the armrest and propped his chin in his hand, staring into the empty, sooty fireplace. 

Mind a twisting, turning chaos, he had no idea how long he had been sitting there, lost in disorganized thought, when he heard soft steps coming closer. Loki didn't bother to look up. He knew who it was, and in his current state he was only capable of a faint stirring of surprise when Tony sank to his knees by his feet and folded his arms to rest them in Loki's lap. When he blinked out of his far-away thoughts and looked down, the boy was peering up at him, curious, thoughtful and so much calmer than he had been the night before.

No longer resigned – determined.

”I don't mind feeding you”, Tony said, softly but sincerely. ”Dying wasn't something I looked forward to – still isn't – but feeding you is okay. If you don't take it all at once, blood is something I can make more of anyway. And I don't think you actually want to kill me. Do you?”

Without removing his chin form the supporting hand, Loki shook his head. It was a strange thing to admit to, but it was true none the less. For the first time he could remember killing a human felt like a bigger waste than having him alive.

”And I don't want to die. Or leave.” He lowered his eyes, ran a fingertip in lazy patterns over the top of Loki's thigh. ”I... I think you know by now what it is I want. And I can't get... that... anywhere else. So I guess we sort of...” Those wide, brown eyes came up again, searching. ”...Need each other?”

Loki felt a crooked smile pull at a corner of his mouth as he reached his right hand out and combed it through Tony's messy, dirty hair. ”It is a beautiful picture you paint, little one, but I'm afraid the tiny rations of blood I can have from you won't be enough for me in the long run. I'll become greedy for more, wish to regain my full strength, and then I might not be able to stop myself.”

Nodding under Loki's hand, still playing with his hair, Tony continued. ”Yeah, I guessed I wouldn't be enough. And I know you have... uh... particular tastes?” He raised an eyebrow and saw Loki smirk. ”You mentioned 'perfect victims', and I figured we are the only ones who can get in here. But considering where I come from I think I know some people like that. I know where to find them. You wouldn't have to sit here and wait, like a spinder in its creepy little web.” He tilted his head into Loki's fingers. ”When the flies could be led right to you.”

Still smirking, genuinely amused, Loki let his fingers trail down to ghost over Tony's cheek, the soft scruff of his stubble. ”And when I'm done with my flies? When they are nothing but hollow husks? What happens to them then?”

Again Tony's dark eyes dropped to Loki's lap. The boy couldn't reply verbally, not yet ready to speak of the filthy, buried secret. But the blush rising in blotches of red across his cheekbones was sign enough that they both knew exactly what would happen, how no part of their victims would go to waste.

Oh, did they ever need each other...


	5. Chapter 5

**Epilogue : Six months later**

The house on 13 Yew Tree Lane was a strange place, but if you asked anyone about it they wouldn't tell you so. You might even need to remind them that the last house on the left, the one a bit set apart and closest to the woods, even existed. And then they would just give a disinterested shrug.

No-one cared that the dilapidated house and its wild tangle of a garden stood out like a sore thumb in the tidy little neighbourhood, and no-one ever reflected on the fact that they had no idea who lived there. They barely spared the place a glance, went about their mundane lives as if it wasn't even there, lurking in the shadows.

Mrs. Hunter in number 14 across the street did have a vague memory of seeing a young man in the front yard the other day, taking an axe to the old, fallen branch from an oak tree. Chopping it into firewood by the look of it, chest bare and sweaty in the afternoon sun. He'd had such pretty eyes, she remembered, huge and brown and bright, and a wide, charming smile to match, surrounded by a goatee. But if they had exchanged any words she didn't remember those.

If the companies supplying the neighbourhood with electricity and water had looked closer at their readings, they would have been able to tell that despite no-one at number 13 Yew Tree Lane paying any bills, there was still a small, regular amount of both delivered to that address. But of course, no-one ever felt compelled to check into it.

If the local police department had thought about it, they would have noticed that there were a couple of files on missing people that always tended to end up on the bottom of the piles on their desks, always glossed over, and no-one could find the time or energy to dig deeper into the cases. And since no bodies were ever found, the priority of them never changed. The ones missing had been odd, troubled souls, and the officers wouldn't be surprised if they weren't missing at all. Perhaps they had simply left town. Such things did happen, after all.

On Yew Tree Lane night was falling, windows turning dark as people tucked themselves in to sleep, and in number 13 life – such as it was – began to stir.

* * *

Tony woke up to a dip in the mattress on the wrong side of the bed. With a tired, whiny groan he turned on his back, stretched until his hands hit the wrought iron bedframe, rubbed his eyes, and blinked them open. He found Loki sitting beside him, dressed in only his pants and with an oddly tense and expectant look on his face.

Frowning, Tony moved to prop himself up on his elbows.

Usually he woke up to Loki stirring from his daytime slumber in the wide bed in the master bedroom that they had taken to sharing a few months ago. He would wrap his long arms around Tony, who always slept close to the cold comfort of his unmoving side, and tuck him against Loki's chest. Nuzzling his hair, nipping at the sensitive skin of his neck, as if to assure himself that the human was still there.

This felt wildly out of the ordninary, and Tony had a sneaking suspicion it couldn't be good.

As he settled with his elbows on his pillow he saw that Loki was holding something in his hands. Something he instantly knew as a syringe. One filled with a liquid so dark red it was nearly black. Blood. And not his; he knew the look of human blood too well by now. 

This had to be Loki's own blood.

Eyes going wider, he quickly looked back up to Loki's face. ”You said one couldn't turn into the other.” His voice was gravelly from sleep.

The vampire nodded, making tangled hair fall off his shoulder and down in front of his face. He took a hand off the thing he was holding to brush it back behind his ear, and as always Tony was struck by how different he looked now, compared to when they had met. All filled out with flesh and muscle, the lines of his once so emaciated face smooth, eyes a lighter, brighter shade of green.

”I did”, he agreed. ”My bite or my blood cannot make you into what I am. But this would still be a gift.” He looked down at the syringe, toying with it almost nervously in his fingers. ”One I haven't had the wish or the power to grant anyone in a very, very long time. One that means longer life, and at least a little of my strength and speed.” Again his eyes met Tony's. ”You would need more, regularly, but considering the success of our little... partnership? I hope I shall be able to provide.”

A beat of silence, and Loki swallowed, looking uncertain. ”If you accept, that is?”

Tony's gaze moved to the cylinder of blood, and then up to Loki's eyes. He'd never let anyone inject him with anything outside of a hospital before, but this wasn't just _anything_ , now was it? So then he smiled, shifted on the bed, took his right elbow off the pillow so he could reach his arm out in Loki's direction, the inside of it facing up.

Offering and accepting, all at once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I told you this mess would somehow have a happy ending... :)  
> If you still want more of these two messed up guys, Mia has written the most amazing sequel, linked below. I still can't believe my fic got its own fanfic before it was even posted. Thank you!!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [A Candle in the Wind](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4491630) by [orphan_account](https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account)




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